With the release of
Chris Rock's
Good Hair, I got to thinking. Let me say straight out that I was really disappointed by the film because I believed it missed a huge facet of this very complex issue: the history of slavery and black imaging in America.
You cannot speak of black hair in America without talking about slavery. You cannot speak of black hair in America without speaking of skin color and phenotype. You see, it is not just simply hair, all these larger socially created issues are all inter-tangled with each other creating the distorted view of the black woman in America. If we start in the antebellum South, we will see that slaves, for example, with more African features were not as prized or as valued in comparison to slaves who possessed more European features, lighter skin, softer hair, etc... (these lighter-skinned slaves were products of an African slave and a white slave master). When one group, such as the lighter-skinned blacks, are favored over another, such as blacks with darker skin, a social standard is created where others are consciously or subconsciously forced to compare themselves to whiteness.
This standard of beauty rooted from slavery is alive and kickin' even in the year 2009. This was lightly and humorously touched in the film, where actresses such as Raven Simone
and Nia Long commented on relaxed hair creating a comfortability with white people. But it was never examined and dissected to be a serious problem rooted in history that still effects the way many black women view themselves today. Chris Rock's own idea for coming up with the film spawned from his own daughter's reverence over her white friend's long, straight hair. I felt this film depicted the black hair industry, but it did not flesh out the meaning of "good hair" which is historical.
On another topic: we did see in the film that hair was depicted, for example, at the Atlanta Hair Show, as a form of expression- and extension of one's personality sewed, glued, colored and cut fantastically, creating a bold statement of creativity through hair. We can date this back to many African societies where braiding patterns were used as a form of geometry and a bride's hair would be adorned with precious stones and beads. Hair is expression. Hair can express or present societal standing, wealth and functionality, as seen in some societies.
However, I think there is a difference between cultural expression that is from your
own people and an assimilated self-expression that is inflicted by white society and afflicted people of color. Since African-Americans have been told from the start that "black" is ugly, heathenistic and uncivilized (and we still see this today in media where light skin and straight hair is pushed onto black women). And this "creamy crack" seems to be some sort of a right of passage where young, black girls are conditioned into thinking that this is just what you do when your baby fine hair starts to grow and sprout its coils. We are painfully conditioning our children (some as young as two and three years old) to think that their hair is unmanageable by putting harmful chemicals (that can cause sores and burns if left too long) to permanently straighten their hair, transforming "unmanageable hair" into chemically processed manageable, relaxed hair. We are teaching our children not to love and appreciate themselves for who they are because they are essentially not good enough.
As a child, my mother refused to put that "mess" in my curly hair. " I want you to have hair when you get older," she would say jokingly. I am the daughter of a black mother and white father, my hair was like a frizzy lion's fro. I remember my mother greasing my scalp with the Pink Lotion and braiding my hair in large plaits to try to tame the beast. But on the days when I would let my hair free I would hear things, notably from my black family members and classmates, like, "You need to straighten that rat's nest" or "Girl, you need to do something with that hair" or "You would look so much better with straight hair." My father, on the other hand, had always liked when my hair was "lion" because it showed off who I was.
I got a lot of shit for my hair, especially in elementary school. Each time I heard an objection to my curly fro my confidence in it would diminish a tad. Even though my parents would always tell me "your hair is beautiful," I was a pre-teen after all. You try to seek approval from everyone. It was my seventh grade teacher, however, who came up to me (in front of the whole class) and said, "You hair is beautiful, look at it." It felt good.
For me, "I am my hair," despite what India.Arie's proclamation of "I Am Not My Hair." My hair is who I am. It is my mother and my father. It is Africa and Europe. It took me some time to wholefully realize that. I see more and more women and men of color embracing their hair. Showing young girls and boys to love themselves. Appreciate your self-expression and versatility. Each strand is different.
To all those that have expressed their negative opinions about OUR hair, I say to them...
Au contraire! My lion is proud and I LOVE IT.
-Sophia
In an recent interview, Spike Lee refers to Tyler Perry's sitcoms Meet the Browns and House of Payne as "coonery and buffoonery." Do you agree with Spike Lee's comment?